Thank you Frank for your response. I had previously read the post you linked to but my concern is that this treats each customer as needing to 'justify' the validity of their isolated problem when a simple "does it match this description" is sufficient to have it handled as a known issue.
I certainly do not want to pay for an engineering report to tell Sony the cost of fixing what I am sure they will already know from a description of the symptoms. Especially without any certainty that it will be refunded, the set fixed, or replaced. I have spent my career troubleshooting telecomms and computer systems. This is not an intermittent fault, nor a vague "not working quite right" fault, neither is it unclear where the cause is located. It is a solid, repeatable, known characteristics, known fix, definite fault. However, Sony are still
in denial.
This post explains my concerns better than I have:-
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Written on 26-Feb-2011 21:57 by "unhappycustom"
Do all Sony LCD screens only last 2 years?
Always good to get an alternative point of view describbler.
Imagine that you owned a car out of warranty and something goes wrong with lots of similar cars. The manufacturer, lets say Toyota, recognises the problem and recalls potentially affected cars and fixes them, even those where the fault has not yet presented itself. No charge, no paying for an engineer to look at it. Isn't that what good customer service should be? Now compare this to Sony who in spite of many complaints do not "officially" recognise the issue even though some of their engineers do and it's widespread on internet sites. This is called denial and it is toxic for Sony.
In pure commerical terms just imagine all of the people who were Sony fans who have said on this site and others that they will never buy another Sony product. Now imagine how many other people they have told about their bad experience with Sony. Now add all those who have read this string or others on different internet sites. In financial terms the cost of the odd potential fraud starts to pail into insignificance very quickly in terms of lost sales due to bad reputation.
Some people continue to feel very strongly about how badly let down they have been by Sony, a brand they once loved and trusted. One contributor to this string told me that whenever he sees someone looking at a Sony TV in any electrical store he quietly tells them his experience and they go and look at another brand.
The bottom line is that Sony unwillingness to recognise and fix a known problem with a specific model has already cost them many thousands of pounds and will continue to do so. Hiding under the covers and making it difficult for customers will not make this problem go away. I'm glad that I'm not a shareholder of Sony because companies that don't listen to their customer always end up in trouble.
I hope that this helps you better understand why the approach currently adopted by Sony is not just bad for once loyal customers it's also very bad for Sony.
What would you do if you worked for Sony describbler?"
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"unhappycustom" also posted this note which clearly describes my own concerns and those of other
forum members:-
"I've been doing some quick research on the web and unfortunately discovered several other Sony customers with what looks like the same problem. Do you know if anyone in Sony has assessed the scale of this screen fault or is working on a way to resolve it that delivers a good customer experience?
The current situation is that Sony expect me to pay an engineer a non refundable £80+ to assess the TV which is likely to involve me being left with no TV. I then need to send the report to CIC and they decide what to do. The expectation, based on others experience is that they might pay 50% of the repair cost. So that's a total cost to me of around £320 if Sony CIC decide to pay. Plus the potential of being without a TV for some time while it's repaired.
The alternative is to spend £129 more on a similar speced Panasonic with a bigger screen.
This bigger issue here is not about faulty TV screens it's about how Sony treats its customers and the major impact that this type of treatment has on Sony the brand. Like lots of people who were big Sony fans I've spent many thousands on different Sony products and been happy to pay a premium price for a premium product from a premium company. The longer this situation goes unresolved the more negative feedback Sony the brand will suffer."
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Regards
Philip
